


golden hero

by zombeesknees



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 15:32:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17266784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombeesknees/pseuds/zombeesknees
Summary: Mako's perspective pre- and post-movie. | Written for Meredith many moons ago on LJ.





	golden hero

At fifteen she pinned pictures of him to her wall, glossy pages ripped from a magazine. ‘The Brothers Becket’, the article had been titled. She could still remember it almost word for word. How looking at his smile above her bed gave her a delighted thrill—‘handsome golden boy Raleigh Becket’, the interviewer had written, and he _was_ handsome and golden, yes, but it was the light on his face, the easy looseness of his body as he hugged his brother with one arm, the joy in his eyes, that struck her the most. Here was a ranger who loved his work, his brother, his Jaeger. He was fighting the good fight, protecting millions, keeping families safe and whole—putting everything on the line for strangers he would never meet because that was his purpose, passion, calling.

At sixteen she watched the news report, stared at the television with eyes blurred by tears as the salvage crew began to drag the smoking Jaeger off the snowy shoreline. **RALEIGH BECKET RUSHED TO HOSPITAL AFTER SOLO-PILOTING JAEGER GIPSY DANGER—BROTHER YANCY BECKET K.I.A—KAIJU KNIFEHEAD DESTROYED** the ticker tape at the bottom of the screen read. She had been busy with schoolwork, had lost track of her golden hero, until Sensei came home early that morning haggard and wordless. And she had known that something terrible had happened. Now she watched in silence with an aching heart—a heart that always ached, like a wound that refused to stitch together cleanly, but now bleeding with a new pain. Before, he had been Apollo: untouchable and distant from the agonies she knew and had made room for for as long as she could remember. Now, he was Achilles brought low by a well-placed, brutal arrow. She thought about the pictures once tacked to her wall, pulled down weeks ago to make room for a poster of the periodic table, and knew that that smiling boy was gone. She cried for him, because she knew the terror and agony of having what you loved snatched away by the claws of a demon.

At twenty-one she supervised the restoration of Gipsy Danger. Studied Raleigh Becket’s strategies and fighting techniques. Selected co-pilot candidates from the PPDC’s Academy. Walked out into the rain to meet Sensei and the ranger who had been a teenager’s heartthrob idol—only to find a bruised and cautious man with lines at the corners of his eyes, eyes that were still as blue and riveting as she remembered. Standing there beneath her umbrella, mere inches between them, as he spoke to her in her own tongue, she could feel it: drift compatibility. Instructors at the Academy said sometimes, very occasionally, pilots experienced an instant connection. The scientists studying the Kaiju theorized that humanity was changing in small, subtle ways from prolonged exposure to the creatures; Kaiju Blue in the water, the air, reshaping the synapses in the brain, making some slightly psychic. But many laughed at the idea of neural connections outside of the Drift. Argued that the best pilots already had deep and emotional bonds, that complete strangers did not make for good co-pilots. You were as likely to find your soulmate in a single glance as you were to find someone you were perfectly drift compatible with.

At twenty-one, Mako Mori found both.

\----

“I still can’t wrap my head around it,” he said, looking up at her. She was sitting on the bed with her back flush against the wall, legs crossed before her. When he had walked in fifteen minutes ago, he’d wordlessly dropped his bag beside the door and come to the bed. His head in her lap, feet dangling over the edge of the mattress, he couldn’t possibly be that comfortable. But comfort wasn’t as important as contact, and so long as he didn’t move, she wouldn’t either.

She lowered the tablet she had been working on. “What’s that?”

“That you looked up to me. Thought I was something special.”

The tablet clicked softly against the bedside table as she set it down. “You are. Always have been.”

“I was just a stupid, headstrong kid,” he said. “Reckless. Cocky. Too quick to leap when I should have looked first—”

“Raleigh. You’re human. We all have flaws, mistakes we regret. Don’t ever think yourself less than because of that.”

“It’s just… I was hardly a role model.”

“You were twenty years old, doing what I’ve wanted to do since…”

His hand reached for hers and she took it gratefully, fingers threading together purposefully, the solid grip tethering her tightly as she took a steadying breath.

“You were protecting people. Killing the monsters. And you were young. Relatable. I could see myself in your position in a way I never could with Sensei, or Marshall Hansen. And it didn’t hurt that you looked very nice without a shirt on.”

He grinned at that, wide and dopey, but she could see the way his cheeks darkened above the scruff of several days. Raleigh Becket, blushing because of her. Her teenaged self would have been shocked into silence. Thankfully, she wasn’t here. Mako smiled down at him, dug her fingers into the wool weave of his sweater, and tugged meaningfully at the fabric.

“Haven’t you got a meeting soon?” he said as he scrambled up, obediently lifting his arms for her to pull the thick cable-knit sweater over his head. His hair crackled with static electricity, the flyaways giving him a fuzzy golden halo.

“We’ve got time,” she said persuasively, leaning forward to catch his lips with hers. He tilted his head for a more perfect alignment, teeth grazing her bottom lip. And as his warm, callused hand cupped her elbow, drawing her whole body closer, she sighed into his mouth. 

In the years between taping magazine photos to her wall and meeting Raleigh Becket on the helipad, Mako Mori had experimented with romance twice. 

The first was with a student at the Academy, all sweaty palms and nervous stammering, a boy named Giancarlo who had been very nice, very well-meaning, and very clumsy. They had been lab partners at first, which progressed to a few awkward dates after he’d mustered the courage to actually ask her to dinner. He had been intimidated by her focus and drive, constantly changing his opinions when he discovered they conflicted with hers. After five dates she’d told him she wasn’t interested in any more, and he had looked more relieved than disappointed. She just couldn’t see herself with someone so uncertain and nervous. 

The second was a technician named Amil, several years her senior and one of Tendo’s assistants. He was handsome, and clever, but also very aggressive. At first, she had liked that about him—he wasn’t afraid to go after what he wanted. They had sex in a closet because he was bold enough to suggest it and she was curious to see what all the fuss was about; it hadn’t been bad, especially for her first time, but she learned quickly that all Amil really cared about was his own experience. It didn’t matter how fun it was for her just so long as he enjoyed himself. And he couldn’t understand why she was so committed to becoming a pilot; why she’d want to put herself in that sort of danger. He tried on several occasions to talk her out of her dreams. After a couple months she broke it off, frustrated by his selfishness. 

She knew she didn’t have much of a frame of reference, but she was pretty sure it wouldn’t matter if she’d been with a hundred guys before Raleigh—none of them would have been able to compare. Because Raleigh was… Raleigh. He didn’t have a selfish bone in his body, didn’t know how to be anything but completely giving. Every touch, every movement, every kiss told her that there was nothing in his world in that moment but _her_. The same concentration he had in a Jaeger pod transferred seamlessly into their bedroom, and there were times when it seemed he could read her body better than she could. He knew when to be forceful and when to be gentle, when to surrender control to her and when to take the lead. In their bed as on the sparring floor, their bodies knew how to move in unison. 

“Do you ever wonder,” she asked breathlessly as she rolled him onto his back, pinning him between her thighs. “If we’re just a little psychic?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted, palms hot against her hips. “I mean… we haven’t drifted in…. weeks. But I still know when you— _God, yes_ —get within a mile of me.”

“I haven’t been a mile away from you since we met,” she countered, tracing the ridges of scar tissue across his shoulder, leaning forward to press a kiss over his heart.

“Thank God. I don’t think I could stand that much distance between us.”

She looked down into that earnest face—and there was always something of an eager puppy about him, wasn’t there? and wasn’t that just ridiculous in a man of his stature?—and grinned. She hoped he could see the light she felt in her heart, the warm glow of the fire he’d kindled in her, the spark of hope for a new life and a fresh start and love after so much loss. Raleigh Becket had become home for her: a real home that she never wanted to leave. And every time he smiled at her like that she felt like singing. She hadn’t sung since before Onibaba; and he was surprised that she had looked up to and admired him—that _she still did_. He thought himself nothing special, nothing unique, when he was one of the most extraordinary people she had ever known. 

Raleigh Becket could heal scars. Raleigh Becket could make a future out of an apocalypse. Raleigh Becket loved her for who she was—every bit of her, tragedy and revenge and all—and had never asked her to be anything but _Mako Mori_. 

“Let’s run away,” she said. “Grab a bag and just go.”

“Go where?” he asked with a laugh.

“Anywhere. Everywhere. Wherever you want. Let’s see the world we helped save.”

“But your work—”

“I’ll teleconference. Email. Delegate. It’s a wonder what we can do with technology these days.”

He grinned and reached up to brush her hair behind her ears. The strands that had once been blue had been re-dyed to a deep jade green—she’d asked him what his favorite color was last week and surprised him that night at dinner. He told her it suited her but that, since she was her, any color would look incredible. She’d called him a ham and tossed at napkin at him, which led to a spirited chase around the room, followed by even more spirited sex on the couch. By the time they’d finally sat down at the table, the roast was stone cold. 

“I don’t want to keep you from your work,” he said. This much sincerity could kill a girl. “What you’re doing is important. I know what it means to you, how much you love it.”

“I love you, too,” she said. “Just as much. Maybe even more.”

“Oh, maybe?”

“Maybe. And… If it weren’t for you, Raleigh, I wouldn’t have any of it. Anything. I want to be with you. Do everything with you. Share it all. I don’t want to have another memory that doesn’t have you in it.”

His hand slid around the back of her neck and drew her down into a kiss, long and lingering and hungry. In seconds she was melting, losing herself in the taste of him and the heat of his breath in her lungs. Her lips were tingling, her body was shivering, and her head was spinning when he finally let her pull away. She blinked in an attempt to uncross her eyes and pressed her forehead to his collarbone until she could think straight again; she could feel the rumble of his chuckle resonate in his chest like a cat’s purr. And then his hand stroked up her spine, the pad of his thumb massaging the spot on the side of her neck that made her legs go weak—lucky she wasn’t standing. Lucky that their clothes had already been discarded and there was nothing stopping them from pressing more flesh to flesh, from listening to the music that always seemed to linger in the space between them.

“Your thoughts are my thoughts,” he said some time later. “And whatever you say goes—you know I’d follow you to the ends of the earth. You’re my co-pilot, Mako. No matter what.”

The alarm went off on the phone beside her tablet, telling her she had fifteen minutes until her meeting. She met his smiling blue eyes, bit her lip, and made her decision.

“I can always reschedule.”

They packed a couple of bags, sent out a few emails, and locked the door behind them.

Sometimes you just _have_ to chase the rabbit—if only to see where it takes you.


End file.
